New TV Series “Family Pictures USA” is Coming to Detroit!

Check out our schedule and be ready to share your stories and family photographs!

The Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow will be in Detroit this summer to film the pilot for Family Pictures USA, our new television series! In partnership with the Detroit 67 Project conducted by the Detroit Historical Society, host Thomas Allen Harris will be interviewing average Detroiters to get their take on the past, present and future of the Motor City, as seen through the family photo album.

Native American parade through Southwest Detroit. Photo courtesy of Chantel Henry

 

Our theme is “Detroit is the Future…And it’s Okay!” We want to illuminate that special Detroit that had been there through the bad times, certainly, but also through the good. Those times spent with family, friends, neighbors; the people we love and who love us. That Detroit is the real Detroit. It doesn’t always get mentioned in newspapers or magazines; seen on movie screens or televisions. But to us, it is the only Detroit that really matters.

Family Pictures USA will take you on a journey through a rapidly changing landscape where the foundations of a familiar and idealized “AMERICA” are being transformed. We use a hyperlocal, intimate format to bring communities closer together and transform strangers into family. These events help to bridge intergenerational and cross-cultural differences in communities that have so much more in common then they ever expected.

“If a photo album of old family photographs could talk, the stories it could tell would be staggering. Thanks to the format of the show, Detroiters will have plenty of chances to have their story heard.” – Detroit Free Press

Press Conference & Information Session

Wednesday, May 31, 3:00-5:00 pm
Detroit Historical Museum   – 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202!

*Press conference includes a 3:30 pm screening of Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People!

Community Photo-Sharing Sessions

• Detroit Historical Museum  – 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202

Wednesday, June 28, 5:00-9:00pm – Co-hosted by Satori Shakoor of The Secret Society of Twisted StoryTellers!

• The Horace Sheffield Center – 12048 Grand River Ave, Detroit, MI 48204

Saturday, July 1, 11:00am-3:00pm – Co-hosted by Belle Island Conservancy!

• Detroit Film Theater Auditorium, DIA  – 5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202

Saturday, July 8, 11:00am-3:00pm – Co-hosted by Belle Island Conservancy and Cornetta Lane of Pedal to Porch!

“Yours truly, Marsha Music, nee’ Battle, in the doorway of the Hastings St. record shop. circa 1960.” Photo courtesy of Marsha Philpot

• Church of the Messiah – 231 E Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48207

Thursday, July 13, 10:00am-1:00pm / 3:00-6:00pm – Co-hosted by American Indian Health and Family Services!

• Arab American National Museum  – 13624 Michigan Ave, Dearborn, MI 48126

Saturday, July 15, 11:00am-3:00pm – Co-hosted by LGBT Detroit!

• Detroit Film Theater Auditorium, DIA – 5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202

Grand Finale:

Friday, July 21, 4:30-6:30pm

• Gordon Park – 12^th  St. & Clairmount Ave.

9125 Rosa Parks Boulevard; Detroit, Michigan 48206.

“Gramps at work on the Detroit Renaissance Center, ca 1975.” Photo courtesy of Chantel Henry

Other events include:

Screening of Thomas Allen Harris’s early films: 

Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela and E Minha Cara/That’s My Face

Saturday, July 1 and Saturday, July 15

• Detroit Institute of Art – 5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202

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